


safe with me.

by theangelofletters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: End Verse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:30:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1217713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangelofletters/pseuds/theangelofletters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this started out as a simple prompt - imagine 2014!dean coming in from a failed mission and taking out his frustrations out on you. i wrote chapter 2 as the fic for that imagine. then i started working on a prologue, like how they got to chitaqua. then i started thinking about if 2009!dean came in and castiel's role in it all so now it's evolved into...this. oh well, enjoy, lol</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. prologue - 2009

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as a simple prompt - imagine 2014!dean coming in from a failed mission and taking out his frustrations out on you. i wrote chapter 2 as the fic for that imagine. then i started working on a prologue, like how they got to chitaqua. then i started thinking about if 2009!dean came in and castiel's role in it all so now it's evolved into...this. oh well, enjoy, lol

“It’s spreading,” she whispers into the phone.

She hears his sigh on the other end, “I know.”

She can hear him talking to other people in the background when he finally shouts, “I _don’t_ care!” His voice is softer when he talks to her, “Where are you now?”

“Texarkana.”

“Thank God,” Dean breathes into the phone. “It just hit Dallas.”

She takes a few moments to make sure she’s still breathing, concentrating on keeping her Jeep between the lines of the road.

“I’ll be in Kansas City by morning,” she reports.

“Forget what I told you yesterday – you gotta stay away from Kansas City.”

She takes another deep breath, if she had known it was going to spread this quickly, she would have never left Dean. But instead, she’s been trapped. First in New Orleans, then again for two days in Baton Rouge before finally driving around Shreveport. It had taken her three days longer than she expected and she still wasn’t in Kansas City – where they had planned on meeting.

“So where do I – “

“Bobby’s,” he finishes. “We found a place we can go.”

She sighs, “Why can’t I just meet you there, then?”

“I’m not going to Chitaqua without you,” he says with the tone of authority she hates.

She stays silent; there isn’t much else to say. The apocalypse is upon them and all they can do is gather all the people they love and find somewhere safe.

Instead she looks at the clock on her dashboard, “It’s nearly 2 am Dean. Why aren’t you getting some sleep?”

She can practically hear him roll his eyes, “I’m fine.”

“When’s the last time you slept more than an hour? Since the breakout?”

She is answered by silence, confirming her answer. “Dean, that was more than four days ago. You have _got_ to sleep.”

“Can’t,” his answer is sharp, gruff.

“Dean, Bobby’s is safe. You don’t have to protect everyone.”

He sighs again, “You know that’s not why.”

Of course she does. It’s the same reason she hasn’t slept well for the last six days either. “I don’t like sleeping alone either, baby, but you’re going to kill yourself if you don’t sleep more. You can’t run on adrenaline forever.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go to New Orleans by yourself.”

“How were you supposed to know that they’d choose _now_ to release the virus?” she snaps.

“They’ve been sitting on it for months,” Dean fires back. “I should’ve known better than to let you go alone.”

She just rolls her eyes, “I’m a good hunter, Dean. I’m going to be fine. Besides, someone had to track down the lead and someone else had to get shit organized now that the break out’s started.”

Dean takes a deep sigh, “I should’ve known better than to think they’d put the Colt somewhere so obvious.”

The silence falls again. All she can hear is the humming of her Jeep’s motor. She wants to turn on the radio, but all that’s playing right now is static.

“Where do you think it would be safe to stop for the night?” she asks quietly.

“Nowhere is safe.”

“Dean,” she whines. “Sioux Falls is over 12 hours away and I’m exhausted.”

She hears him take a deep breath. He speaks quietly into the phone, “I need you here.”

“But Dean I –“

He cuts her off, “You don’t understand. I can’t – it’s hard to – “ he takes a deep breath, she knows he’s having trouble voicing his feelings.

“I know, Dean,” she soothes.

“When you get here, I’ll make sure you get enough sleep. Just – just _come_ , okay?”

She nods, “Okay, I’m driving as fast as I can.”

“Call me when you get through Omaha.”

“If the phones are still working, I will.”

“Shit,” Dean says gruffly. “I completely forgot about that. Look, if your cell isn’t working by the time you get through Omaha, pull over and try to use a landline, okay?”

She smiles to herself, he’s so overprotective. “I will, Dean.”

“Be safe, okay?”

“I will.”

“See you tomorrow.”

She hangs up the phone and sets it in the cupholder. She reaches over into the glove box and digs through old CD’s until she finds the AC/DC album she loves. She puts it in the CD player and turns the radio all the way up. She’s going to need some good tunes if she’s going to make it to Sioux Falls in one piece.

–

When she finally makes it to Singer’s Auto Salvage, her eyes are bloodshot and she’s sluggish. She doesn’t remember how she drove through the last 100 miles, but suddenly she puts the Jeep in park and Dean is there to get her out of the car.

He half-carries her into the house. She barely recognizes Bobby wheeling around, trying to help Ellen pack the things they’ll need, or Castiel looking at his hands, trying to come to terms with being human – she makes a mental note to talk to him about it.

Dean doesn’t stop until he reaches the spare bedroom and he gently sets her on the bed. Her eyes focus enough to see him – really _see_ him.

He looks as if he hasn’t shaved in days – which he probably hasn’t. The bags under his eyes make him look 40 instead of 30 years old. His eyes are just as bloodshot as hers and his hair is all over the place, like he’s been running his hands through it a lot.

“I made it,” she says with a yawn.

He nods and gently smiles, “I know, sweetheart.”

He puts her hands above her head and inches her dirty teeshirt off of her body. He takes her sports bra off too, and all she can think about is how different he is.

“Do you remember the first time?” she asks with another yawn as he turns to his dresser to retrieve an old black teeshirt.

He nods, pulling the shirt over her arms and on her body. It’s rare that he gets to take care of her like this instead of the other way around. He reaches down for her boots, socks, and jeans. He slowly inches them off of her legs.

“We started off a lot like this, if I remember correctly,” he smirks.

She just giggles – he’s right. She had met Sam and Dean on a job and when they celebrated afterward… she’d just gotten too drunk.

“You shouldn’t have tried to keep pace with me,” he laughs. “I told you I’d drink you under the table.”

She grins, “But if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are, now would we?”

The smile fades a little from his face and he just continues getting her ready for bed.

When she’s finally under the covers, he starts to take off his own clothes since she hates for him to sleep in his jeans. When he’s just in his boxers, he takes a few steps toward the window, pulling the thick curtains closed so the room is semi-dark.

He joins her under the soft quilts on the bed and the last few days finally wash over his aching limbs. He regrets lying to her about getting a few hours every so often – over the last four days he’s maybe gotten four hours total of sleep. But every time he tried to lie down, he just wondered where she was, what she was doing, and when she’d be back.

But with her head on his chest, her hand in his, suddenly the outside world doesn’t seem as scary anymore. She’s there – she’s with him and that’s all that matters. He reaches down and gently kisses her forehead, pulling her close to him.

“How long do we have to sleep?” she mumbles.

He chuckles, “As long as you want. Bobby’s waiting on us before we can leave.”

She sits up on her elbows to look at him. His hand finds her cheek, stroking the soft skin. He’s been dreaming of this for four long days. When she leans in to kiss him, it’s soft and passionate. His left hand sinks to her neck while his right climbs her back to her hair, both pulling her closer to him. She surrenders, eventually letting him pull her on top of him. She straddles his waist, her hands moving down his face and to his neck.

“Is now really the time?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.

He shrugs, “Never know when we’re gonna get another chance.”

She frowns a little, so he pulls her face to his, erasing her frown.

“We really need to get to sleep,” she says between kisses.

He nods and smiles against her lips, “Definitely. I’m so tired.”

But his actions don’t mirror his words as he pulls his teeshirt off of her body, throwing it to the side of the room – he’ll find it afterward. He presses his lips to her neck, body tightening at the moans she gives him. He lifts her up so she can remove her underwear and so he can shuck off his boxers.

He pulls her back to him and crushes his mouth to hers, trying desperately to show her how much he’s missed her over the last few days. His hands trail down to the skin of her hips as his mouth gently kisses where her neck meets her collarbone.

“Dean,” she moans.

He chuckles, “I know, sweetheart.”

He lets her get off of him while he reaches over to the nightstand for a condom. He unwraps it and eases it on his cock as he rolls over so he’s on top of her. He steadies himself on his forearms and leans down to kiss her lips. She opens her eyes and he sees that they’re sparkling for him – there’s no way she’s going to surrender to sleep now.

He puts his weight on his left forearm and eases his right hand down her body. She trembles at his touch, but he doesn’t stop until his finger is poised at her waiting entrance.

He stops for half a beat.

“Dean,” she whines.

“I know, baby. I know,” he says, lowering his mouth to hers and pushing a finger inside her.

She’s wet – God, she’s so wet and tight that Dean has trouble not coming right then. She arches into his body as he adds another finger, moaning loudly – too loudly. He puts his left hand over her mouth, “They’re gonna hear you and know that we’re not sleeping,” he chuckles.

She smiles and gently bites his palm, “I don’t care.”

Dean shakes his head as he pumps his fingers into her. He wishes they could stay like this, but he knows things are going to change. So he concentrates. He concentrates on pleasing her, on making her moan and tense up beneath his fingers. She trembles, and Dean decides he’s had enough.

He pulls his fingers out of her and centers his weight on top of her, reaching down to line himself up with her. She reaches up and gently touches his face, eyes bearing into his. He puts himself into her, letting his weight carry him in. He shudders from the tight, wet, warm feel of her taking him and he buries himself inside her.

He moans and closes his eyes, trying to memorize the way she feels beneath him – around him. “God…” he moans.

She pulls his face down to hers, “It’s okay, Dean.”

He doesn’t know if she’s telling him to go on or what, but he does. He starts to pound into her, slowly at first, but picking up speed and intensity with each thrust. It doesn’t take long – he knew it wouldn’t – but suddenly he’s on the edge and gasping.

He reaches down to her clit and gently begins to touch it, sending sparks through her legs as they tighten around him. He moans as she does, trying hard not to come – barely succeeding. He rubs her, flicks her, does everything he knows to do… _anything_ to get her off so he can finally come.

When she finally orgasms, when she finally releases, Dean does too. He feels every muscle tense as he pumps into her, desperately trying to ride out both of their orgasms. When they’re finished, it takes him a few seconds to remember how to breathe. He pulls out of her and gets up from the bed, cleaning himself off and disposing of the condom.  Every muscle cries out with fatigue.

When he gets back between the quilts, she automatically curls into his chest, her hand finding his as she rests her head in the crook of his neck.

“Are you worried?” she asks softly, following with a yawn.

He shrugs, “About what?”

“Sam, Croatoan, the apocalypse…”

His hand tightens on hers, “Sammy doesn’t want my help.”

She just stays silent, letting the comment go. He’s glad he doesn’t have to explain himself to her. Not like he does to Bobby or Ellen or Jo.

He tilts her head up toward his, “I’m going to keep you safe. You know that right?”

She nods, “I know, Dean.”

He crushes her to him, trying to memorize the feel of her on his skin. “As long as I’m around, nothing bad is going to happen to you,” he whispers. He holds her close, the sound of her breathing being the last thing he registers before he finally falls asleep.


	2. prologue - 2009

The backdoor to her cabin opens and shuts softly before she hears the sound of someone locking it and boots shuffling across the floor. It doesn’t wake her – she hasn’t been able to sleep since he’s been gone. She can never sleep when he's gone. She exhales in relief, not realizing that she had been holding her breath waiting for him to come back.

She sits up in her bed and looks across the small, one-roomed cabin to see him, leaning up against the counter and swiftly chugging her last bottle of whiskey. She briefly considers asking him how it went, but one look at his face tells her it didn’t go well.

Instead of speaking, she pulls the quilts back and puts her bare feet on the cold wooden floor. Her plaid pajama pants and tee shirt aren’t warm enough for the cool January night, so she wraps her arms around herself and crosses the room to him.

“Are you hurt?” she says. It’s a little more than a scared whisper, but he hears her. He shakes his head and takes another long drink from the bottle.

She stands before him and gently takes the bottle, sitting it on the table behind her. She brings her hands to his shoulders and helps shrug him out of his jacket. Not believing him, she checks his face, neck, torso, and arms for any open wounds or broken bones. Finding none, she turns and walks to the bathroom to get a clean washcloth.

Like an obedient child, Dean sits in the chair at the table that she pulls out for him. He stays quiet as she cleans his hands, his neck, and his face of the dirt and blood that he accumulated on the mission.

It was their routine: he’d come in, she’d clean him up and check him. If she found any wounds, she would stitch him up – she was the _only_ person (besides maybe Castiel) that he would let stitch him up.

When she finishes, she sits the cloth on the table and closes her eyes. She wonders how many people they lost while she was laying safely beneath her quilts, but she doesn’t ask – he never wants to talk about those things while he’s with her. She considers making her case to start going on the missions with him, but she enjoys the silence while he’s there. When he’s not there, it crushes her.

She feels his hands on the sides of her hips, gently pulling her between his legs. She complies, putting her arms around his shoulder and using one to cradle his head. He buries his head in her chest and his arms tighten around her middle, bringing her as close to him as he can.

“It’s okay, Dean,” she soothes. “You’re safe here, you’re safe with me.”

Safety. The constant reminder that she shelters him from the harsh demands that lies outside the door to her cabin. Food, Croatoan, missions, the Devil himself – she lets him drop every single worry at her door. She is the only one who never needs an answer from him. She just gives him her love.

And for that, he takes care of the things she can’t. Cutting her firewood, patching the roof of her cabin, making sure she had enough food and water, and even the warm comfort of his arms at night – he makes sure she has everything she needs and she never has to ask.

“How bad?” she asks softly, hoping that talking about it will help.

“Too bad,” he gruffly replies.

She takes a deep breath, “I could help on some of these.”

Dean’s head jerks up toward her, his mouth set in a hard line, “No, you couldn’t.”

“I was a pretty decent hunter before all this happened, you know.”

He nods. He knows. He hunted with her once or twice before the Croatoan virus spread. In fact, she was with him when they came to Camp Chitaqua.

“Still not happening, is it?” she surrenders, rather than argue with him.

A ghost of a smile plays at his lips as he looks away from her, but it is quickly wiped from his face. She sighs – she misses the Dean Winchester that would have given her a smart assed reply back, the Dean that she could joke and play with. Too much has happened; she knows that, so she doesn’t press it.

He looks back at her, “So help me, you will never go. _Ever._ Not if I can help it.”

She sighs and keeps playing with his short hair. “Are you afraid I can’t keep up?”

“No.”

She takes a deep breath. Normally, she wouldn’t argue, she wouldn’t ask, she wouldn’t care. Normally she just opens her arms to him as a comfort. But she’s tired of her friends dying while she’s tucked away safely in bed.

“Then why?”

His green eyes pierce hers and she instantly regrets pressing the issue.

“You really wanna know?”

She weakly nods, unsure if she really does.

Dean nods and looks down at her stomach. “Because, if I lost you… i-if you _died_ on a mission…” his voice cracks and his hands tighten on her hips.

“It’s okay,” she soothes, her hands finding his neck.

He takes a deep breath, “I _can’t_ lose you. You’re all I got left.”

Small, definitive statements, but she’s never heard him say anything like that. She’s always known that he cares about her, but war-hardened Dean Winchester of 2014 is not the type of man who gives out sappy, chick-flick confessions. In all honesty, she knows he would rather take on all the Croatoan of the world and face Lucifer in Sam’s body than he would repeat himself.

As badly as she wants him to go on, to keep whispering sweet nothings to her, she knows that he doesn’t have to. She is his refuge, his safe haven. Hers is the one place that he doesn’t have to explain himself.

“You’re safe here,” she repeats, pulling him close to her.

He grabs her face gently, pulling her toward him. His lips capture hers, but it’s soft, passionate, loving. Not worried and desperate like normal. A soft moan escapes her lips – these nights are her favorite, slow, passionate. The nights that he tells her he loves her with his body instead of words, because words simply aren’t his style.

He pulls her into his lap on the chair, sitting her so she can grind against him as he runs his hands down her tee shirt. He breaks from her lips and starts moving down her jaw and into her neck, his hands tightening on her with every moan he hears.

“I will always protect you,” he whispers in her ear. “As long as I’m around, nothing bad is going to happen to you. I’ll keep you safe.”

And she knows that. She knows how much she means to him – she can see it.

She sees it in the way that other women in camp try to get his attention, but yet it’s _her_ bed that he sneaks into, not theirs. She sees it in the way Dean tenses up when she and Castiel are in the same room together, like he doesn’t trust his orgy-loving best friend around her (which is okay, because she likes being the only woman in camp that Castiel hasn’t had on his bed). She saw it a month ago when Dean laid Tommy Ralton out with one swing and threatened to do the same to any other man who made inappropriate comments about her. She sees it in the way he kisses her before he leaves on dangerous missions – the way he kisses her when he comes back.

He brings his mouth back to hers again, fighting her tongue for control. He sucks her bottom lip and gently nips it, smiling for the first time in hours when she squeaks in surprise. He stands from the chair and wraps her legs around his waist, carrying her with him. His arms lock around her as she holds on to his neck.

Instead of laying her on the bed, he stops just short of the queen sized mattress and sets her on her feet, his lips never leaving hers. He breaks apart and looks down at her eyes – she can easily see the silent plea: _take care of me_.

So she does.

With his jacket already off, she gently untucks his shirt from his pants and pulls it up over his head. She runs her hands over his arms, well-muscled from the hard camp life. Her hands trace from his neck, over his shoulders, down his chest and to his stomach. Her fingers lightly dust over each scar.

She kisses the ones that she personally sewed or patched – the bullet wound in his right shoulder from last spring, the cut on his left side from where he fell on glass shards last fall, a couple more cuts and scrapes scattered everywhere. Dean shivers every time her lips come in contact with his skin.

Sinking to her knees, she starts to work on his thigh holster, unclasping it from his right leg. His hands tangle in her too-long dark locks, bringing it away from her face. He loves to see her face.

When she finally clicks the holster away from his leg, she holds it and the gun up to him so he can put it on the nightstand. When they’re finished, she knows he’ll want it close by in case he needs to protect them. It’s the same reason she keeps the rifle he gave her by her side of the bed. Just another reminder of the evil that lies outside the door.

She works on his belt next, unfastening it and unbuttoning his jeans quickly. She pulls his jeans and boxers down in one clean swipe, exposing him to her. He takes off his boots and steps out of the dirty jeans and boxers, sitting them next to his dirty shirt to be washed later, probably by her.

Her hands make their way up his thighs, gently grazing more scars and the marks where the thigh holster was so tightly pinned to his leg. She kisses the skin, slowly making her way closer and closer to his growing erection.

Before she reaches it, she looks up at him and smiles. This is what she likes: taking her time with him. She hates the desperate, rough, I-need-you-now fucks between daily tasks and rushed before and after missions. As Dean strokes her hair away from her face, he wishes he could go slower with her more often, but they rarely have time anymore. Love making has been reserved for special occasions.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he whispers again, his voice ringing with sincerity.

She smiles at him again before lowering her mouth to his pulsing dick. She takes it slowly into her mouth and hears him gasp. His fingers that were tangled in her hair gently press on her scalp, silently begging her. Her tongue swirls around the head before she goes farther down on him. She gently sucks as she bobs, her hands feeling the muscles in his thighs tense up. One of his hands reaches for hers and she hears him moan her name.

She bobs her head a few more times, rubbing her tongue over the head of his dick each time she reaches the tip. After one swirl of her tongue, Dean is done. He grabs her face and gently pulls her back to his mouth. She giggles at his eagerness – they never have time for foreplay.

His hands trail down from her neck to the sides of her ribs and she involuntarily shudders. “Now it’s my turn,” he whispers against her lips.

She smiles, “Who says I was done?”

The familiar twinkle returns to Dean’s eye and he smirks, “I did.” she surrenders with a gentle kiss.

His hands reach up under her shirt and she shudders from his cool touch. He pulls her into him, taking her shirt and pulling it with him as he goes. She didn’t wear a bra to bed, so she stands shirtless before him, almost wanting to cover herself.

She had learned early on that nakedness wasn’t something Dean was ever ashamed of. She knew that it wouldn’t have mattered if he was in good shape or not, he would have the confidence of a male model. She, however, was a little shyer. For the first two months that she and Dean started sleeping together, she had insisted it was in the dark with the lights off, because she was ashamed of how she looked. Eventually, he coaxed her into the sunlight, and although she is okay with showing _him_ her body, she still isn’t very confident.

He gently grabs her wrists and placed her hands around his neck, exposing her to him. She blushed and looked away under his soft stare. He reaches down and pulls down her plaid pajamas, leaving her in the lace thong she had worn to bed.

He pulls her close so their skin was touching and she could feel the heat building. His hands are no longer cold to her as they trace down her back – it makes her hungry for him. He lays her on the bed, pulling back the quilts so she could get between them. He turns to make sure the fire was well supplied with wood before he crawls in after her.

But the second he gets between the blankets, he shuffles so that he is on top of her, between her legs.

“Dean,” she moans as his lips crash to her neck. He kisses, sucks, nips the skin. Gently, ever so gently. His hands find her breasts, softly tweaking her nipples; she moans softly, arching into his touch. He chuckles as he brings his face down to replace his hand. His scruff rubs her sensitive skin as his hand reaches up to take hers. His other hand trails down her bare stomach to her laced thong.

He releases her nipple promptly, causing her to whimper at the loss of sensation. “Dean,” she whines.

“I know, sweetheart,” he gruffly says.

He brings his mouth back to her skin, starting just under her breast and making his way down her stomach. He goes slow, tantalizingly slow, causing her to grab the sheets and bends into him. He throws back the quilts so he can see her and he sees the goosebumps from the cool air freckle across her skin. She looks up at him and he smiles before he kisses the lace that covers her sex.

She throws her head back into the pillow. “Dean,” she moans. She’s impatient. She needs him. Just that simple moan tells him everything he needs to know.

He sits up on his knees and lifts her rear so he can get her panties off – she submits and lifts her hips to him. He throws them on the pile with their other clothes.

Dean rubs his rough, calloused hands from her neck down to her sex, eliciting moans from her. He smiles down at her, this is what he likes, taking his time and making her his – his only. She had other men before him, but none of them matter, just like the women he had before her. She’s his, and he’s hers.

He brings a finger between her folds and finds that she is dripping wet for him. He runs his finger down the length of her slit, causing her to hiss and lean into his touch. He can feel his cock twitch and his balls tighten with every response she gives him. He gently inserts a finger and she moans in pleasure. While he pumps his finger slowly in and out of her, he brings his other hand to her clit, massaging it quickly. She starts to breathe faster and faster, her eyes close in concentration on what he’s giving her.

Suddenly, he picks up the pace of his finger fucking her and eases off the pressure on her clit, going at an antagonizing slow pace. The sudden change causes her to lean up to him and moan his name again. He chuckles, “I know, sweetheart. I know.”

He considers letting her come now, before he even gets inside her. He knows she loves when he’s concentrated solely on her. She’s never said it, but he knows. But _damn_ , does he love when she comes on his cock. And after the day he’s had, he deserves the simple pleasures like that.

He pulls his hand back and sucks on the juices she left on him. God, she tastes so sweet.

She looks up at him, brow furrowed. She’s not used to him stopping in the middle like that – which means there’s a threat nearby.

“Wha – “

He puts a finger to her lips, “Everything is okay.”

She nods and lies back on the bed, trusting him.

A few years ago, Dean would’ve then asked her if she was on the pill or reached for a condom, but times have changed. He can’t remember the last time he _saw_ a condom, much less used one. When the world went to hell, birth control was a bit lower on the list than food. So, as always, he briefly considers what will happen if she gets pregnant. Of course, he would take care of her, probably marry her (if he doesn’t do that soon anyway).

But right now, he wants to take care of her a different way.

She’s always the one he runs to, always the one taking care of him. She lets him take whatever he needs from her, whether that’s a shoulder to cry on, arms to hold him, or someone to fuck his frustrations out on.

Round two, he’ll probably fuck her till she can’t walk and she’s sore – he’s done that before after rough missions. He’s bent her over this same bed and fucked her from behind until she couldn’t stand. But right now, he just needs her.

He pulls her hips toward his and teases her with the head of his dick. She looks up at him through half-closed eyes and he knows she’s cursing him inside her head for teasing. He leans down and meets her lips, kissing her softly again before lining himself with her entrance and putting in the tip of his dick.

She starts to moan in his ear, but when Dean lets his weight carry him inside her, it turns into a grunt.

Dean wants to take it slow, he wants to show her that he can give back to her, but all he can think about is how tight and warm she is beneath him. He starts to roll his hips against her, using his left forearm to support his weight so he can lean down to kiss her. He pumps into her, thrashing again and again, pulling out almost all the way before crashing back into her.

“Dean,” she moans, her hands pulling at his hair. He moves with her, thrashing into her and feeling all of his worries fade in the background.

What he’s going to do for food in the camp, with one thrust, he’s not thinking about it anymore.

How many men they lost today – that’s off the backburner of his mind too.

The constant fear of a croate walking into her cabin – he kisses her neck and the only thing that matters is her moan, her fingers tightening on his shoulders, her hips coming up to meet his with every thrust.

“God,” he grunts into her neck. He’s close, he can feel it, but he wants her to come with him.

He leans up from her neck and puts his two forefingers in her mouth. She licks his fingers, sucking them until he suddenly pulls them out and puts them down to her clit. She grabs the sheets behind her and moans again. His left hand grabs her hip and pulls him down farther on his dick, his right hand massaging her clit in time with his thrusts.

Watching her move beneath him is almost too much – Dean wants to come right then and there. But he wants her to come with him – there is no better feeling than that.

She starts to tighten around him, “I-I’m close, Dean!” she breathes.

“I know, sweetheart,” he says.

He starts to apply more pressure, hitting that sweet spot with his cock.

Finally her body convulses and he knows she’s seeing stars. She twitches around him, screaming, panting, twisting the sheets in her hands. He thrusts harder into her, riding out her orgasm so he can come with her. Everything inside him tightens as he kisses her lips and he bursts with his own orgasm too.

He grunts as he comes to a stop on top of her, both of them panting from the intensity. It hasn’t been like that in a long time.

“Wow,” she breathes. “What got into you today?”

He kisses her and pulls out, already missing the feel of filling her. He rolls on his back and pulls the almost forgotten quilts around them. She lifts her head so he can put his arm underneath her as she cuddles to his chest. He kisses her forehead and grabs her left hand, examining it.

She breathes deeply and Dean is almost positive she’s going to fall asleep in the next two minutes.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she mummers.

He smiles, “It can’t be that bad to have me out of here.”

She shakes her head and yawns. “I hate when you’re gone. I worry about if you’re okay.”

He pulls her close again, “I’m here now. You’re safe with me.”

“I know,” she breathes again. “I trust you.”

He knows she does, he just wishes there was more he could do for her. More that he could show her about how he feels.

“I wish we could go back,” she mumbles. “Back before the world went to Hell.”

He chuckles, “I think everybody wishes that.”

Her sleepy spell broken, she sits up on her elbow so she can see his eyes. “What do you think we would be doing if the apocalypse hadn’t started?”

Dean looks around the room, thinking. “I’d still be hunting – that much I know.”

“What about me?”

He smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “You’d be in your normal picket-fenced house, making dinner for your normal husband, enjoying your normal life.”

She frowns, “That sounds boring.”

“That sounds _safe_ ,” he corrects. He brings his arms around her, pushing her to his chest again.

She takes a deep breath and he sees her close her eyes. The silence settles, and Dean starts to picture what she would be like with her normal family, normal husband, normal life – a life he could never be in.

His heart starts to sink when he thinks about all the wonderful things she’s being deprived of – things that he simply can’t help. He’d give anything to go back in time and give her what she wants. But he can’t. But as Dean holds her, he decides that this – this right here – is enough.

He closes his eyes softly, thinking about a world where he could be normal with her, when a soft, sleepy whisper breaks his daydream.

“I’d rather be _here_ with you than _safe_ with anyone else.”

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	3. november 2013

It started with wood.

Her cabin ran out and it didn’t take long for the November snow on the ground and the wintry chill in the air to creep into her cabin.

For two days she sat with every piece of clothing she owned on her body and every blanket she had wrapped around her before she finally gave up.

She walks out of her cabin and grabs the axe Dean uses to cut firewood. She’s watched him do it more than once and is confident that she can handle it just as easily as he does.

She sits one of the logs on top of the stump that Dean cut down to use just for this purpose. She grabsthe axe with a split grip like Dean uses and swings it high over her head. She pulls it down toward the piece of wood and…

Slices her foot open through her boot.

It takes a second for the pain to hit her nerves.

Another second for her to register the pain.

And a third for her to start screaming for help.

She manages to knock off the uncut piece of wood and sits on the stump, just staring at the blood gushing through the open place in her boot. She remembers something Dean had told her about pain when he’d gotten shot last spring.

_It only hurts if you really think about it – think about something else._

She starts thinking about the snow, how cold it is. Her foot doesn’t hurt as bad when she isn’t concentrating on it. As soon as she dulls her own senses to a more manageable state, she starts to think about what she was going to do since her cries for help reached no one.

She knows she _can_ stitch her foot if she absolutely has to. It would be painful and crooked and it would take a very long time – but she can do it. She looks across the camp – her cabin sits on the far edge of the camp, farthest away from the med cabin and Castiel’s cabin. She rolls her eyes once again at Dean’s insistence of her taking her own cabin – getting the help would be a lot easier if the only other person who’s ever in her cabin wasn’t gone on a mission right now.

Chuck’s cabin sits only about 200 feet from hers – surely she can make it that far. She reaches into her thick coat that Dean gave her and shimmies out of her thermal undershirt. She feels the loss of the warm layer on her skin but gives it up anyway, wrapping the thermal around her boot, tying it so it keeps the waterproof layer closed – hopefully no snow will get in her wound. She uses the non-axe end of the axe to steady herself as she stood up and starts hobbling toward Chuck’s.

It takes a little longer than she realizes and she’s weak by the time she reaches it. She doesn’t think she’s lost too much blood, but she wasn’t a nurse before the apocalypse happened – she could be dangerously close to dying and wouldn’t know it.

She leans up against the stairs of Chuck’s cabin and calls for him. “Chuck! Chuck, I need your help!”

But there’s no sound in response. She groans – Chuck must be doing something extra important to make room for all the provisions Dean’s supposed to be bringing back. The medical cabin is at least another 100 yards, she has no prayer of getting there by herself.

She starts to get back up and try to make it back to her cabin and stitch it herself until Dean gets back, but she hears someone pad through the snow. Castiel is pulling up the collar of his jacket when he sees her on Chuck’s steps.

“Cas?” her face breaks in relief. “I thought you were gone.”

He stares at her pale face, “What’s wrong?”

She points down to her foot and the thermal shirt holding her boot together. “Had an accident. I need some help.”

Castiel’s eyes narrow, “How long ago?”

She checks her watch, “Maybe 15 minutes.”

Castiel nods and bends down to her foot. He unties her thermal bandage and gently, gently removes her boot. He tenderly wipes the blood from her foot so he can see the wound.

“I think I can do this one myself,” he calmly says. “Unless you’d rather have Missy do it – I think she’s the only other one in camp right now.”

She just nods and bites her lip, trying to act tougher than she feels, “Cas, I trust you.”

He smiles and it really reaches his eyes – something she’s not used to. It’s a smile she hasn’t really seen paint his face since he lost his grace.

The smile is there, but it disappears quickly as Castiel reaches down under her knees and behind her back. He carries her bridal style without falter and carries her through the snow to her cabin.

He pads through the door, shuffling snow on the clean floor and she groans, knowing she’ll have to clean it later.

“Are you in pain?” Castiel asks.

She shakes her head and groans, “I just mopped the floor.”

Castiel chuckles as he sits her at her table, propping her bare foot on another chair.

“Where is your medical kit?”

She points to the bathroom. Sweat beads on her forehead despite the chill temperature of the room – she wonders if that’s a side effect of nearly cutting your foot in half.

Cas walks off toward the bathroom and it grates on her nerves a little. She’s going to pieces at the kitchen table and he’s _walking._ She chuckles at the difference: when she’s injured around Dean, he panics, runs around, and swears a lot. She decides she prefers the quiet calm of Castiel in a crisis.

Castiel returns with the first aid kit and gets the whiskey, thread, and needle he’ll need. She notices that he takes his time prepping it all, making sure he gets it right. She likes that about him – he’s very attentive to detail, it makes him a good choice for second in command here.

When he’s finally got everything ready, he reaches down to her bare foot, pushing up the leg of her jeans. Her hand darts out to grab his and she stares intently in his eyes. he stays silent while she examines his light blue eyes for a few seconds before letting his hand go back to his work.

“What was that about?” he questions, narrowing his eyes.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t stoned,” she admits truthfully.

Castiel smiles that toothy grin for a second before looking back at her foot. He dabs alcohol on the wound, cleaning it thoroughly. She yells at the first dab of the liquid – more from surprise than pain, but holds still as Castiel’s feather-light touch grazes her foot back together while she takes shots of the whiskey.

He makes slow, precise stitches on the top of her foot – it reminds her of her own technique when she stitches Dean’s wounds. She understands why Cas is the only other person Dean will trust to stitch him up while he’s on missions.

She tries to zone out while he works, but it’s hard. She hisses in pain and tries not to tense up as she imagines white sand beaches and margaritas and all the things she’s missed since the world went belly up. She takes a drink every time she thinks about her foot. It doesn’t help either.

“Why aren’t you out with the others?” she breathlessly asks, trying to relax.

Castiel just shrugs, “I wasn’t asked.”

Her eyes narrow, “But Dean trusts you more than his own life.”

Castiel smirks, “That may be, but we’re building that new cabin for Mark’s family – he wanted me to oversee that.”

The needle sinks back into her skin and she hisses again, “Where were they even going?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Castiel casually asks.

“N-no,” she answers. “I never know anything.”

She studies Cas’s face, but he gives nothing away as he works. He falls silent again, but it doesn’t take him long to finish, cutting and knotting the thread before gently patting her leg.

“All done.”

“Thank God.”

Castiel smiles and reaches into his pocket. He takes out a couple of white pills and hands them to her, “Here, they’re Loratabs. They’ll help with the pain.”

She nods and takes them, swallowing them both with alcohol. “Probably supposed to take those with water,” she sighs.

He smiles, “Probably. I’ll help you get in the bed. I’m sure you don’t feel so good.”

She takes his hand as he helps her hobble to the bed. He helps her out of her jeans – very mindful of her new stitches – and even looks away as she puts on flannel pajama pants and a long sleeved shirt that once belonged to Dean. He tucks her into her bed and examines her fire place and the absence of firewood.

“I see what caused the problem,” he observes, pointing to the wood-less pile.

She gives a small smile, “I thought I could do it, okay?”

Cas just smiles, “Go to sleep.”

she just sits back in the bed and reaches for the book she likes to read. She smiles at Castiel, “Thank you, Cas.”

“Anytime,” he says. “Next time, just walk to my cabin and steal from my pile, okay?”

She smiles and nods, going back to the book. She becomes engrossed in it, reading a few more chapters before the chill of the room starts to eat at her skin. She pulls the blankets closer in toward her and jumps when the door opens.

Castiel is breathless, red faced and sweating, his arms full of firewood. He smiles at her and crosses the room, trailing snow and mud and sweat everywhere. She watches in silence as he stacks the wood, getting just enough to start a new fire. When it’s roaring, he turns to her.

“I’ll be back in a few hours with some painkillers and to check on the foot and fire,” he promises. “Don’t move.”

She mock salutes him, “Yes sir.”

…

Castiel sits in his cabin a few hours later, trying to decide if he should make her some soup or not. He remembers breaking his foot two years ago and how she brought him soup or food or whatever at least once a day – she was so good to him.

A pain grips his back where his majestic wings used to tie to his body and shoots outward. He winces, gripping the edge of his table for support. It only lasts for a second, and then it’s gone. He reaches up into his cabinet for some more painkillers and pops them back, hoping he’s numb in a few seconds. He puts a few in his pocket for her to take later.

Castiel had heard of humans experiencing phantom limb pains when losing a hand or a foot or a leg, but he never imagined he would have the same experience with his wings.

But he does.

Every so often, the pain creeps into the imaginary space where his wings used to be. It’s the most agonizing pain he can imagine, but it’s more the emotional pain of losing his wings than actual physical pain. He’s tried to talk to people about it before, especially those in camp who have _lost_ limbs, but he can never manage to admit what’s happening.

He takes the drugs, the pills, everything to numb him. Numb him to the loss of his wings, his grace, his…everything.

Five years ago, when Castiel chose to remain on Earth, to fight the good fight alongside humanity, he thought he was doing the right thing. Dean had begged him to join him and go to this camp, where they’d regroup for a while, teach some people how to use weapons, and then they’d start trying to hunt Lucifer in Sam’s body. Cas had reluctantly agreed – his brother had to be stopped.

But by and by, the voices that usually filled his head became quiet. The section of his brain reserved for angel radio waves became dull and empty, fading away like his mojo. One day, it was simply gone, used up. It was almost as if he had never been an angel. Dean had helped, saying that all he needed was some retraining and he’d be just as good of a hunter as any human man in camp. Castiel had thought it would be easy, just like being a soldier or something.

But becoming human was hard – it was filled with so many _emotions_.

At first it had been sorrow. Sadness. Emptiness. Loss of a family, of brothers and sisters, of a father that he wasn’t even sure cared about him anymore. But as he had sat in his cabin, the familiar one that enveloped him now, he had realized that the angels never really _were_ his family.

But the Winchesters had been.

Bobby Singer had treated him like a son until he passed.

Even… _she_ had extended her hand of friendship, letting it blossom into a bond closer to family.

As his angel grace had started to retract from his body and the human emotions had started to form, he had started to notice things about her that he hadn’t before. The way her light blue eyes sparkled when she smiled, the way she tenderly touched his skin when she spoke to him, the way her southern accent rolled off of her tongue…

Castiel stops what he was doing at the sink – he can’t focus on soup anymore. He reaches into the cabinet for a bottle of whiskey and opens it, taking a swift chug.

He remembers the worst night, the night the sorrow had come crushing down on him like a paperweight on an ant. He had run from his cabin, not really sure where else to go. Dean had banned him from missions since his angel mojo was fading – he didn’t want Cas to get hurt until he was completely retrained. The only person left in camp who understood him was her.

He had staggered into her cabin, tears painting her face. She had been sitting at her table, reading some book and had looked up at him with her big, doe eyes.

“Castiel, what’s wrong?” she had asked him.

All he could reply with was, “Everything.”

To this day, Castiel still doesn’t know if she really understood him or not, but she held him as he cried, as he clung to the last shred of himself. That had been the night his grace had completely left and Castiel realized he was completely in love with her.

That night, he’d realized something else, a revelation that still shook him to this day. All this time, he had thought he was choosing humanity, the Winchesters, his _family_ over the angels and Heaven, but that had never been true. His grace had been blocking him from realizing… he’d been choosing _her._

She’d made her choice as well. She’d chosen Dean. Not that she ever really had to make a choice. It had always been Dean. Why wouldn’t it have always been him? The Fearless Leader, strong and silent but yet ever caring about _only_ her.

Dean had given up his womanizer ways the moment Sam said yes to Lucifer, committing himself to only her, while Castiel had gone the opposite direction. He had surrounded himself with sex, making the other men jealous with his orgies and his women and drugs. He had put every woman in the camp on her back in his bed… except her. Of her, he wasn’t worthy to have.

And what was he? The fallen angel, a warrior fighting on the wrong side of the war. More than that, a drug addict.  A sex crazed hippie who pined after a taken woman. Not that he would do that to Dean anyway. Castiel knows better than anyone that the two of them are all Dean has left and he knows how much she cares for Dean, how happy they make each other in this shit storm of a world.

He sighs as he takes the can of Campbell’s and the painkillers from the cabinet and reaches for his jacket on the back of the chair. He promised her he’d check on her and she needs him while Dean’s gone, so he laces up his boots and walks out of the cabin, not even bothering to lock it.

As he walks through the snow, he can hear the familiar roar of the Dean’s Jeep and Tommy’s truck. He recognizes it from before the Apocalypse – back when she was a hunter. After Sam said yes, Dean quickly let the Impala go to waste and started driving the Jeep – it didn’t have memories of his brother and was a lot better off-road.

Castiel bites his lip – Dean’s going to be pissed when he hears what she’s done to herself, but he’ll worry if he doesn’t see her there waiting for him. He changes course, heading toward Dean and the crowd gathered around him for their rations. Castiel watches Dean and the others work for a moment – handing out diapers, soap, cans of food, bottles, formula, feed for the animals, plant seeds, all of the good supplies.

Dean nods when he sees the former angel and jumps down from the back of the truck, swinging down a bag of cans with him.

“Hello, Dean.”

He expects Dean to ask about the building of Mark’s cabin, but he doesn’t. “Where’s she at?” he barks, eyes searching the crowd for her.

Castiel makes a face, “Dean, she’s in her cabin.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Why is that, Cas?”

Castiel smiles, “Your – uh, girlfriend, thought it would be cute to chop her own wood instead of asking me for some.”

“And?” Dean replies, testily.

“ _And_ she missed the wood, chopping her own foot instead.”

Dean drops his bag of cans and takes a step toward Castiel, raising his arms. “Well is she okay!?”

“Easy, Dean,” Castiel remarks, narrowing his eyes. “No need to get loud. I stitched her up and I was about to go over and make her some soup.”

Dean sighs in relief. He rubs his face, “How bad is it?”

Castiel shrugs, “A couple weeks, maybe? It was pretty deep.”

Dean groans and reaches out to touch Castiel’s shoulder, “Thanks, man. I appreciate you looking after her. I know you’re only like the second person she trusts when I’m not here.”

Castiel smiles and clasps his best friend on the back, “Anything for you two.”

“Alright then,” Dean says, allowing a rare smile. “Let’s go see my girl.”

“Let’s, indeed.”

The walk to the cabin is fast and Castiel has trouble keeping pace with Dean.

Dean bursts through the front door and Castiel can see the smile that paints Dean’s face – it almost looks like the smiles Cas witnessed when he first met Dean.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he coos, reaching down to sit next to her on the bed. “The hell happened?”

She smiles too wide and Castiel can tell the painkillers are still making her high as a kite.

“I realized I’m not any good at wood chopping, that’s what.”

“Were you wearing the steel-toe boots I got you?”

Her cheeks redden a little.

Dean shakes his head, “That’s what I figured. This is my fault anyway, I should’ve left you more wood or told Cas to bring you some. It won’t happen again.” He kisses her forehead and surrounds her with his arms.

“I missed you,” she whispers. Cas knows she’s whispering so he doesn’t hear them, so he turns away, sitting the painkillers on the table.

“I brought you some more of those Loratabs,” he announces, looking back at them.

Dean’s eyes narrow, “What, Cas?”

Cas smiles, “Don’t worry, Dean. They’re actually _for_ this kind of thing.”

Dean grumbles a little before looking back at her. “Cas took good care of me today,” she says with a smile.

Castiel chuckles, “And that kind of goofy talk is how you know they’re working.”

Dean just nods and stands from the bed, sitting her head down. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I gotta talk to Cas for a second and then I’ll make us some dinner.”

“Okay.”

Dean starts walking toward the front door, so Castiel follows. He expects Dean to keep walking toward his cabin or toward the main hall of camp or something, but he just stops on the porch.

“Something wrong, Dean?”

Dean takes a deep breath, “Look, dude. I know.”

Castiel narrows his eyes, “What?”

“I know how you feel about her.”

“What?” Castiel chuckles to cover his surprise. “What a ludicrous idea.”

Dean puts up a hand, “Cut the crap, man. I know. I’ve known for a long time, okay?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Dean shrugs, “Never was an issue before.”

Castiel stands a little taken aback and narrows his eyes further, “Are you saying it’s an issue now?”

Dean nods slowly, “Look, man, I’m the leader of this camp, right? I got a lot of responsibility and I can’t just drop everything for three weeks to wait on her hand and foot, do you understand?”

Castiel nods, “You want me to watch her when you’re gone.”

“Right, but…” Dean sighs, struggling with words. “More than that, Cas.”

Dean leans against the railing of the cabin, rubbing his face. “I could’ve easily died today, you know? Croate almost came too close. If something – if I … you know…”

Castiel nods, he understands.

“She’s not equipped to take care of herself,” Dean sighs. “And that’s – that’s my fault. I wanted to shelter her instead of get her ready. But like today – if I hadn’t come back and she’s laid up in the bed, someone’s gotta take care of her.”

“I would, Dean.”

Dean looks at Castiel, “I know, Cas. That’s what I’m saying. If something happens to me… _I_ trust you, which means _she_ trusts you. I need to know that if I – if I have to die, or if something happens… I need to know that I’m leaving her with someone I _trust_. Someone I _know_ will take as good as or better care of her than I did.”

Castiel just stares at Dean for a moment before nodding slowly. “I’m almost offended that you have to ask.”

Dean smiles and opens his arms to the angel, “Thanks, buddy. I knew I could always count on you.”


	4. august 3, 2014

The pie is almost done baking when she hears the rumbles of vehicles in the middle of camp. The crushing weight on her shoulders instantly lifts and a smile takes its place.

 _Dean is home_.

She checks the pie one more time and decides the crust is done enough for it to be taken out of the heat of the oven. She pulls on her oven mitts and takes it out, sitting it on the window sill on the far edge of her makeshift kitchen.

It’s hot in her cabin today, what with the dog days of summer finally starting coupled with the baking she’s been doing. She doesn’t mind – heat is something she’s just grown accustomed to over the last five years, she’d rather be hot than cold anyway.

She walks with a skip in her step, hurrying to put on her shoes and hat so she can run to where Dean and the rest of the hunting party are most likely handing out meat and other supplies.

Within seconds, she’s quickly out the door of the cabin she shares with Dean and walking toward the middle of camp. She passes the cabins of some of her friends and waves to the few that she sees. She passes Jane with her husband in the cabin on her left – Castiel just oversaw it and made sure it was built right and snug.

She smiles and waves at her friend, speeding up her pace to the center of camp.  She sees the crowd of people all waiting patiently while Chuck sorts out the rations by category. When he’s done, whoever needs something takes it. No one pushes, no one shoves or shouts or gets angry, and no one ever takes more than they need – all part of the very tight and well-ran ship Dean commands.

Castiel stands in the back of the truck, helping a few of the others take some of the boxes of stuff and hand it down. He smiles as she walks up and nods to her, taking a smile and nod from her as well.

Next to him in the bed of the truck is Dean. His jacket lies across the roll bars of his old Jeep and sweat pours down his face and frame. His shirt is tight against his torso and almost completely sweat-through. Her breath catches as she watches the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and torso contract, then relax, as he picks up different things and hands them off to someone on the ground.

As he reaches back down for something else to grab, his eyes dart, scanning the crowds. She knows by the look on his well-worn face that he’s searching for her. It’s a tightly locked mask that he wears, showing no emotion to anyone in the camp – but she knows better. She can tell by the movement of his eyes that he’s searching for her.

And if that weren’t enough, when his eyes finally make contact with hers, his body floods and relaxes with relief. The leak of emotion is only a second long though; the mask of emotionlessness is quickly back on his face as he watches.

One by one, the families take the things they needed from this trip, and one by one they take their things back to their cabins and go back to their daily duties. Some are on patrol duty around the camp, some have their own chores inside their houses to do, and some walk around aimlessly, helping neighbors.

When the last person takes their things, Dean and Castiel hop down from the truck and she watches the men gather around them.

“I think we’ll be okay for a few weeks at least,” Dean says.

The men nod in agreement.

Dean gives a rare smile - not the same one he reserves for her, the smile that lights up his face and reaches his eyes. This one is still the gruff, stern Dean she knows, but there's a playful edge to his face. "I think we might even celebrate tonight."

The group breaks out in smiles and cheers around Dean and Castiel, she can't help but smile at the happy faces and the idea of letting loose tonight. Dean's face turns serious again.

“Now, you guys remember last winter when we had to build all of those new cabins?” a few more nod. “I think we need to start seeing about expanding a little bit and building more than we really need right now.”

Luke Johnston scoffs, “You can’t be serious? What would we be building for?”

Dean’s eyes narrow in a dangerous glare, “You never know when a new group of survivors are going to wander into camp. I’d rather have the room and not need it than need it and not have it.”

Another sigh, “I think we found all of the survivors we’re gonna find, Winchester.”

“Were you not paying attention last month, Johnston?” Dean spits. “We found two survivor groups holed up in the city. How do we know there aren’t more?”

Luke takes a step forward, into the circle, standing eye to eye with Dean. His face starts to get red as he shakes, “Why is it _our_ job to save them? we’ve got our own people to worry about, Winchester. We don’t really have the resources to open our arms to anybody who walks up, but we do. And we sure don’t have the manpower or resources to go _looking_ for survivors in hot zones!”

Quiet settles as Dean chews over Luke’s words. She’s proud – two years ago he probably just would’ve decked him and called it good. Now, he thinks about what he wants to say.

It’s a shame that Luke doesn’t.

“I think you got us looking for more than survivors,” he spits.

“Excuse me?” Dean asks, narrowing his eyes.

Luke shakes his head, “I think you’re on a suicide mission and you have been since – “

Dean purses his lips and his tone is acidic when he interrupts. “Are you challenging my command?”

She sees a look flash over Dean’s features as he calmly talks. She knows that look – the one she’s seen before countless jobs and missions.

The calm before the kill.

“Easy now!” she says, running toward them and standing between them, facing Dean and pushing him back toward Castiel. “Nobody is challenging anything, Dean. Were you, Luke?”

Luke just crosses his arms.

She presses her palms against Dean’s sweaty chest and pushes, Dean gives, letting her push him back.

“Ever since your brother decided to shack up with the other side –“

“You son of a bitch!”

“ – you’ve been _begging_ a croate to take your ass out,” Luke spits.

She looks up in Dean’s eyes and sees fire flash through them – but Dean isn’t looking at her anymore. He pushes her out of the way as gently as he can and starts walking toward Luke, but before she can call out, six pairs of hands are on Dean, pulling him back and heaving him to sit on the tailgate of the truck.

She looks behind her to see Castiel’s eyes flash with rage and she’s sure that hers are too. She looks around her and sees people starting to duck out of their cabins to see what’s going on. She looks back at Dean struggling and Castiel deliberating behind her – this is the _last_ thing the camp needs. Croates, shortages, those are things they can deal with, but their fearless leader being questioned and fighting over his brother…not so much.

Her hand flies out to touch Castiel’s shoulder too and he calms beneath her touch. she turns back to Luke.

“Don’t talk about him, ever.”

Luke’s upper lip curls around his teeth, “Oh yeah, little lady?”

She nods, “I’m serious, Luke. Just walk away now and it’ll be over.”

But Luke doesn’t – he smells a challenge and she can see it on his face.

He shakes his head and takes a step toward her; out of the corner of her eye she can see Dean struggle against Castiel’s hold against the tailgate of the truck.

“I know because you’re fucking him,” he says, pointing to Dean, “you think you can walk around this camp and say whatever the fuck you want.” He leans in closer, only a breath away, “But you can’t.”

She rolls her eyes. It’s not the first time someone has had something to say about her relationship with Dean. “I say what needs to be said,” she retorts, “that has nothing to do with Dean.”

“Bullshit,” Luke barks. “You need to get off your pedestal, _sweetheart_.” He smiles daringly at Dean as he says the familiar pet name, he turns back to her. “Ole Winchester may have liked’em like you for his whole life, but you don’t have the ass or tits to try to boss around the men in _this_ camp. “

And that’s all it takes.

Before Dean can snap a comeback, before Castiel can grit his teeth in anger, she rears back her fist and sends it flying forward to his nose. She feels the crunch of his bone beneath her knuckle and hears his howl of pain as the blood flows freely. She turns away from him and cradles her right hand. She’s pretty sure she busted her own knuckle, but she won’t know for sure until she gets a closer look at it later. She turns toward the boys and sees Dean beaming proudly as Castiel smiles and shakes his head.

But Dean’s eye contact suddenly breaks and he looks behind her. She turns just in time to see Luke start walking toward her.

“You little _bitch_!”

 He rears back his own fist but drops it instantly. She follows his gaze to a step behind her, where Dean flanks her right and Castiel flanks her left.

“ _Try it_ ,” Dean growls. “I’ll tear you to pieces and feed you to croates myself.”

Luke just shakes his head, walking off toward his cabin. When she turns around, the sinister look painted on Dean’s face is gone, replaced with concern and fear.

“Are you hurt?” Castiel asks.

She just holds out her hand, “I think I broke a knuckle.”

Dean chuckles, but the sound is flat. “That’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he says, but he looks at Castiel. She sees them exchange glances and knows they must be doing the thing where they talk with their eyes instead of their words – they do it often – but she doesn’t care enough to ask what’s going on.

“C’mon,” she finally says. “The party will start soon.”

…

For the Croatoan Virus refugees of 2014, there were few pleasures in the world. Making sure everyone had enough to eat, drink, wear, and sleep were the priorities on everyone’s list. But sometimes, something extra special would seep through the mundane day-to-day survival – the birth of a baby, a marriage, sometimes even big successful supply runs – and there was something to celebrate.

With the camp being as small as it was, things like that didn’t happen very often. Dean could count on one hand the number of celebrations Chitaqua had from January to August of 2014 – Jane’s marriage to Will in February, Andrea’s bouncing baby in May, and of course, the supply run he’d just come back from.

They’d hit it big, finding an old Sam’s Club warehouse that was relatively untouched in one of the surrounding towns. Of course, the meat was ruined, but the store was in a farming town, which meant plenty of feed for the farm animals in camp. He picked up enough seeds for every family to have its own garden, enough diapers for the babies in camp to last at least a month, formula, tampons… he even got lucky enough to find a few boxes of condoms that hadn’t expired yet. Dean doesn’t think that they’d need another supply run for the next three weeks.

And that makes him feel like like celebrating.

Of course, the celebrations in camp resemble something closer to the 1880’s than the bar scene Dean had become comfortable with during his 20’s, but it suits him.

A few of the older guys in camp had managed to bring instruments with them when they came, and a few more had figured out how to carve others from wood. Luke could play a mean fiddle, Tommy could play a makeshift drumset, Will was good with the harmonica he’d managed to save, and a few more had guitars and things. Some even had sheet music they’d managed to find or save.

Every time Dean said they could celebrate, all the guys would get together just before dusk and play, and play, and play. All the whiskey and beer from camp (except what the med cabin used) would be brought out and everyone over 18 would get to drink. Everyone would take turns dancing in the common, open area of camp (when it was nice enough outside), and they would usually dance and drink and laugh until the sun came up.

But the ones who were able and didn’t play instruments didn’t get to dance the whole night. Dean would spend the whole day before a party coming up with some kind of shift system that would let everybody stay at the party for equal amounts of time. It usually worked out with three people to a shift for three hours, then they switched. He would spend the most time on a shift, watching the boundaries of camp, making sure that their loud noise didn’t attract any croates. They were far enough into the woods that it usually wasn’t a problem.

Dean gave himself the first shift on patrol with a few of the new kids that had just come of age in the camp – so new that he didn’t even know their names. He had situated it in three teams of three, with Risa heading one team and Cas heading the other, that way someone experienced was in control at all times. But these parties, since nothing usually happened, was a good way to break in some of the 18 year old cocky shits who were still pumped they got weapons.

Dean had outlined where they were all to patrol and when and sent the boy and girl on their way. He prayed he just didn’t catch the two of them fucking in the bushes while they were supposed to be on patrol.

The first patrol goes smoothly, smoothly enough that Dean was able to sit for a while and listen to the music and laughter from the party. He passes the old Impala – almost rotting away in the weeds. He wishes once again that he’d had the time and willpower to take care of his old baby, but he just _doesn’t._ The car just reminds him of Sam and of all the miles they spent chasing down monsters.

It represents a period of his life that’s over – instead of Dean chasing the monsters, _they_ were chasing him.

His eyes catch a flicker of movement on the other side of the Impala. It’s quick – stealthy, almost too quick for a croate wondering up on their party. Dean quietly stands and grips his shot gun tightly. He pulls it to his shoulder, staring down the scope. He lines the crosshairs up with the movement he saw, lining it up almost next to the old Impala.

When he sees the person in his sights, he lowers the shot gun and shakes his head before raising it again. Sure enough, it’s _him_ – a version of himself wandering through the gate and toward the Impala.

It should _frighten_ him, but it doesn’t. he should probably panic, but he doesn’t do that either. Instead, he picks up his shot gun and starts walking around the Impala, hoping he can catch himself from behind.

“Oh, baby no.” he hears himself lament. “What did they do to you?”

He steps on a branch – _fuck_.

His younger self looks up and he quickly brings the butt of his shot gun on the back of his other self's head. He supposes he should hurt or at least feel bad for knocking himself out, but all he can contemplate is demons being able to clone him and how to destroy it before the clone infects the camp.

He heaves the shot gun on his left shoulder and braces himself to pick…himself… up. He slings the other Dean over his shoulder and takes off toward his cabin.

…

As the song ends, she lifts her hand from Castiel’s shoulder and checks her watch – it’s half past two, which means it’s been nearly four hours since she’s seen her boyfriend.

“Shall we go again?” Cas asks her.

She makes a face and takes a deep breath, “Are you kidding? We’ve been going for nearly five hours without a break.”

He smiles, “Dancing is part of a party!”

She returns his smile and playfully rolls her eyes, “And when do I ever not like a party?”

“Exactly.”

She watches the rest of the group start dancing as she and the former angel find a couple of beers and an empty picnic table. She sits on the high table part and puts her legs on the sides, Cas sits beside her on the bench, close to her legs. She looks out, drinking her beer and scans the crowd, but she still doesn’t see Dean. “Have you seen him anywhere?”

Cas shrugs, “Nope. I'll see him at the end of my shift in three and a half hours.”

“Hm. Maybe Risa’s seen him.”

Castiel shrugs and sips on a beer. It's been so long since she's seen him with anything except hard liquor in his hands. The beer and the dancing brings a soft flush to his cheeks, complimenting the features of his face. His hair is wild and scattered across his head, looking like he just got up or just had sex with any number of the girls in the camp.

"He could be in your cabin, sleeping. He hasn’t been getting much lately.”

She nods, Castiel is incredibly observant. “Well, I’ll head to the cabin then.”

Castiel smiles and reaches for a shot of whiskey sitting on a table. “And I’m going to stay.”

“Got a big orgy planned at sunup?” she teases.

Cas smiles widely and reaches up to pinch her cheek, “When do I ever not have a big orgy planned?”

She giggles, “Well, Missy has been staring at you all night, Cas. Maybe you should go put a move on her."

"Nah," he replies, scrunching his nose. "I've had Missy before - wasn't all that impressed."

"I didn't mean to just hook up," she explains.

Castiel takes his beer to the edge of his lips, contemplating her words. Behind him, the music starts to change to a slower number and she can see the couples start to form as they hold each other tightly. 

"What did you mean then?"

She shrugs, "Maybe you should just ask her to dance."

Cas raises an eyebrow at her, " _Just_ dance? Where's the fun in that?"

"You've been just dancing with me all night, am i not any fun?"

Castiel laughs, "Okay, you got me. But you're different."

"Why?" she asks. "Because sex with me never crossed your mind?"

He opens his mouth to speak, but he looks like he thinks better of it and closes it right away, looking off toward the dancing couples. "You're my best friend," he says, quietly enough that only she can hear him. "You're like family to me. Missy's just... she's just another girl."

She reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder, "You know, Cas. Until you give someone a chance, every one in the world is going to be 'just another girl.'"

Cas shrugs, "Maybe."

She smiles, "Someone will catch your eye someday, Cas, and your world will never be the same." She gets off of the beer and clinks her beer bottle to Cas's before chugging it all down. "Well, i'm heading to the cabin. I'll see you later, Cas."

Castiel nods, “Go on. I’ll let him know that you need him if I see him.”

She starts walking toward the cabin in the darkness. The paths are empty, everyone is at the party, still drunk and still dancing. Even little children are allowed to stay up late on party nights. The alcohol makes her feel a little lightheaded and happiness courses through her veins. The music still plays in her head as her feet lightly touch the ground.

She sees the lights on in her cabin ahead and chides Dean for missing out on the party. As she approaches the porch steps, she smiles. Maybe he came back early to wait for her and to passionately make love to her, since they rarely have time for that anymore. When she opens the door, her heart almost leaps in her throat. Dean is there, handcuffed to the ladder that leads to the loft of her cabin. Okay, maybe not passionate lovemaking, maybe it’s the bondage stuff she knows he likes.

His eyes widen at the sight of her, but it’s not like an anticipating lover. It’s a look of fear.

Her eyes leave his as she studies his face, his outfit. He wears a dark blue coat that she hasn’t seen in years – besides that, it’s so _clean_ for an overcoat. There are no bloodstains or mudstains in it at all. She gazes down his body and realizes his shirt is untucked and he’s not wearing the thigh holster that is _always_ at his side. Even his face is different. His skin is stretched tighter over his face and his freckles prominently stand out against the darker skin, there are bags under his eyes, but they're not nearly as deep and baggy as the ones she saw this morning.

“You – you’re not…” she trails off, backing away from him. The alcohol snaps from her mind and she is instantly sober. She reaches down for the gun in her thigh holster and for once, she's glad she wears the thing when Dean is out of camp - God only knows where he is right now. She clicks off the safety and aims the handgun at this impostor.

He puts up his hand that’s not cuffed, “Hey, hey hey, easy now! Look at me, I’m _Dean_. I’m the Dean you know, okay?”

She narrows her eyes and keeps the gun pointed for his heart, “No way. You're not my Dean.

"Sweetheart, you're right. I'm not the Dean of 2014 - he and I already established that."

Her gun falters in her hands, "What?"

"He-he was here," the impostor clarifies. "He was going to get Cas or something - I have no idea."

She chews over his words, "So you're Dean, huh?"

He nods, "From 2009."

"Okay," she offers, narrowing her eyes, "If you’re really Dean Winchester, tell me something _only_ he and I would know.”

The man (she still refuses to think that it’s Dean) nods and his gaze hits the floor, thinking of something. “Ah!” he says with a smirk, looking back up at her.

“The first time we ever hooked up, you took your first shots of Jack Daniels because you thought you could keep up with me. It took 10 shots to put you on your ass and I drank 15 before I even felt like quitting.”

She shakes her head and points the gun at his head, “Anyone in that bar that night knew that.”

He nods quickly and holds up his non-cuffed hand, “Okay, okay, okay then. Th=that night, you were a giggle drunk. When I took you back to my hotel room, y-you decided to punish me for looking at cute blondes and waitresses all night... You called out every name of every hunter you knew, Sam, Bobby, Roy, Jimmy… all of them except mine. Until…”

She tries to hide the smirk that pulls at her lips, but she can't. “Then what happened?”

He smiles, “When you orgasmed, you screamed _my_ name. And you never called out another one after that.”

She stays silent for a moment, the memory penetrating her thoughts. He was right, and it was something only the two of them could've known. She lowers the gun, clicking on the safety and tucking it back in the holster on her upper thigh.

“Okay,” she says. “’09, huh? How are you _here_?”

“Dick angels,” he grumbles. “By the way, any idea where the – uh – other me went?”

She shrugs, “I was coming to look for him here.”

Dean looks around the room and a smirk pulls at his lips.

"Any idea why my Dean put you in cuffs?"

The younger Dean shrugs, "Something about finding some asshole kids and getting someone on a patrol."

She stands from the table and starts to look through the drawers for the key to the handcuffs. When she finds it, she unlocks Dean from the ladder.

“So is this my cabin or something?”

“Not just yours,” she snorts.

“Oh yeah?”

She smiles, “We share it, dummy.”

Dean stops in his tracks and studies her, “We do?”

She nods, “Why?”

“Wow,” Dean chuckles. “In my time, we just slept together about a month ago. I keep thinking about making a move, but I always have a reason why I shouldn’t.”

She just smiles, “Well, for me and the, um, other you, it didn’t really turn to anything serious until after Detroit.”

“Yeah, he – uh, _I_ mentioned Detroit. I guess Sam was a big deal.”

She scoffs, “Just a little bit.”

He looks at her and she sees the tenderness behind his eyes again - a tenderness that isn't really around anymore, that part of Dean's personality is too war-hardened to make much of a presence.

“Is – uh, Cas here?”

She nods, “Would you like to talk to him?”

Dean just nods, “Yeah, I would.”

She leads the way out of the cabin, back toward the fanfare and the party. “I just hope he’s alone.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Dean asks. “Would the now me be with him for that patrol or whatever? Now me told me to stay put.”

She rolls her eyes, “And now you knows everything of course.”

"Of course," He smiles. "This is _me_ we're talking about - past or future." and the twinkle is there in his eyes – she misses that twinkle so much. She sighs and quickly looks away from him.

“What?” he says, reaching for her shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” she brushes it off.

“No,” he probes. “Tell me.”

She looks at him – one glance at the twinkle and she’s a goner. “You’re just… _happier_. I miss seeing you happy.”

“What am I a jackass now?”

She laughs, “No. you just have a lot of responsibility to deal with. It wears on you and you lean on me.”

The two approach Castiel’s cabin and she points to it, “There you go, handsome.”

She starts to turn back toward the party when he reaches out for her hand, “C’mon now, sweetheart. In my time we’re attached at the hip. I can’t go anywhere without you.”

“Makes me think you’d want to use now to be rid of me,” she teases.

He laughs, “Absolutely not. C’mon.”

So she does.


	5. august 4, 2014

“Torture?” the younger Dean asks. “Oh, so we’re-we’re torturing again? No, that- that’s good – _classy_.”

Acid drips from his tone and Castiel can’t help but smile – he misses this Dean, the smartass, playful Dean of 2009.

The older Dean rolls his eyes and pulls out a map, showing exactly where the young demon from last week had said Lucifer was. When he finishes his plan, Castiel raises an eyebrow. “Dean, that’s _right_ in the middle of a hot zone.”

“Crawlin’ with croates, yeah. You sayin’ my plan is reckless?”

“Are you saying we walk straight up the driveway, past all the demons and croates, and we just shoot the devil?” Castiel asks.

“Yes.”

Castiel meets Dean’s eyes and he sees a flash of something.

 _Regret_.

Castiel bites back his tongue from the question that’s on his mind – the only question that matters, but he can’t. not in front of Risa, not in front of the younger Dean. He can’t let the 2009 Dean know that things are so bad in 2014 that Dean Winchester is willing to sacrifice himself, his camp, and his best friend to kill the Devil.

So he looks away and lets a smirk curl at his lips, “Okay, if you don’t like, uh, ‘reckless,’ I could try insouciant, maybe?”

“Are you coming?” the older Dean asks. Castiel sees that flash of his eyes again and the set of his jaw – he realizes Cas has already figured out the plan.

There’s only one _real_ answer.

“Yes, of course.”

He quickly scans the room, seeing Risa and the younger Dean. He can’t let the younger Dean see what he’s turned into. “But why him? I mean, he’s you from five years ago, if something happens to you, won’t something happen to him?”

“He’s coming.”

“Okay,” Cas huffs. “I’ll get the grunts moving.”

“Loaded and on the road by midnight.”

Cas waves as he and Risa leave the cabin. She huffs a little bit and massages her temples with her hands. Castiel can’t really blame her – if he hadn’t previously been an angel, he probably would’ve been freaked out too.

The two of them round the corner of Castiel’s cabin, Cas’s mind working a million miles a minute. Dean doesn’t plan on any of them surviving this mission alive – it’s a simple fact Cas has known since Sam said yes to Lucifer. Dean is a hard shell of the man he used to be – but Cas had really hoped he was above sacrificing his _friends_ to kill a monster.

But, Castiel’s mind argues, don’t the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few?

He doesn’t mind dying, especially to save the world. But as he glances to Risa, he wonders if she would mind knowing that she was about to get sacrificed.

She mistakes his glance, her lips pulling into a smirk as she takes a step toward him, backing him into the wall of his own cabin. “You know,” she purrs, “midnight’s a few hours away. We have time for a little,” she pauses and slips her hand inside his jacket, “stress relief.”

Cas smiles as best as he can before gently pushing Risa away, “Look, I – I’d love to, but I have something to do before we go. Maybe when we get back?”

 _Lie_. He’s going to die on this mission and he knows it, there’s just something he’s got to do first.

Risa’s bottom lip puckers in a pout, but she stands still long enough to let Cas slip past her, quickly walking toward the other end of camp toward the cabin she shares with Dean. This could be his last chance, and although he has no illusions about the outcome, he still has to get it off his chest.

He sees the lights are on in the cabin and takes a deep breath, walking confidently up the stairs to the porch.

…

Dean looks at himself across the room. He can see every wrinkle on his face, the bags under his eyes, the tense set of his jaw. Is this what five years of constant fear of survival, losing Sam, trying to keep her safe… is this what it will do to him?

“So Sam is…”

“That’s right,” his other self confirms.

“Sam said yes?”

“That’s right, the big _yes_.”

Dean takes a deep breath and pulls out a chair, collapsing into it. He starts to imagine the kind of torture – physical or psychological – that Lucifer would’ve had to inflict on Sam to get him to agree, his hands tense on the table.

He shakes off the thought, looking at his older self, “So what the hell happened then? Big guy released the virus and it all went to hell?”

“Basically,” his older self takes a deep breath. “And I’ve got to kill him by any means necessary.”

“’Any means necessary’?” Dean quotes back, narrowing his eyes at his older self.

Older Dean just keeps packing his backpack.

“Something is wrong with you, man,” Dean tells himself, shaking his head. “You’re willing to just sacrifice all your friends to kill some monster? What about another option?”

“There are no other options,” the older Dean growls, slamming his hand on the table. “Don’t you think I’ve tried everything? This is the last resort. I’ve got to keep her safe and this is the only way I can do it.”

“Her?” Dean asks himself. “This is about her?”

The older Dean nods. “It’s only the beginning for you, man. You don’t understand yet.”

“Understand what?”

He leans over the table, looking his younger self in the eye, “It has _always_ been her.”

Dean just narrows his eyes at the older him sitting across the table. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it, man. Think hard about the night she started hunting with you, about the night you slept together. Was she really just another hook up or hunting partner? Have you slept with anyone since her? Have you even _looked_ at another woman since her?”

Dean leans back in his chair, thinking hard. The rush, the touches, the sheer _pleasure_ – he’d never felt more at ease with a woman before or since. He exhales, remaining silent.

“You knew from the beginning you’d have to keep her around, didn’t you?”

The younger Dean just looks up at his clone – he can’t speak, he doesn’t know what to say. Sure, the thought had been running through his mind for the last week or two, but he had no idea it would turn into something so serious. He takes a deep breath, desperate for any kind of subject change. “So this virus.”

“I was in South Dakota when it happened – she was in New Orleans,” the older Dean says. “Everything was chaos and I couldn’t get to her. I had to wait four days for her to make it back to me before we could come here. Longest four days of my life and we weren’t even together then.”

The younger Dean nods for him to continue.

“Eventually, she made it and we all came to Chitaqua. Between her, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and I, we were the only ones who really knew what was going on, so we started preparing people. After a month, Cas came and lost his mojo, so we taught him too. We lost Jo on a run for food a few months after. A year later, we lost Bobby on a raid in South Dakota, not long after that, Ellen got sick and went too.”

“Wow,” the younger Dean breathes. “That’s rough.”

His older self nods, “And you know what? After five years of battles, of wounds and of killing and pure _survival_ , she and Cas are the only family I got left.” He takes a deep breath and rubs his face, “I just thought, you know, if this works, she’d be safe from croates and the apocalypse and _everything_ , forever.”

“You thought?”

He nods, “Then you showed up. Zach sent you here, right? He wants you here so he can show you how bad it gets? Get you to change your mind?”

Dean nods.

“Listen to me, man: you gotta say yes.”

“No!” the younger Dean exclaims, narrowing his eyes. “Armageddon’s gonna torch the planet.”

“Look around you man! There _is_ no planet! You go back, you find Michael, you make sure that she and Cas are taken care of and you say yes.”

“You didn’t!”

Older Dean smiles and looks around the room, “No. But I should have. I had everybody on my side. Bobby, Sam, Ellen, Jo, even her, all of them were telling me I could do it. all of them were saying we’d find a way without saying yes. She was the most confident of all – she believed in me to the point of leading her into this whole goddamn mess. All because she was afraid of what I would be when I was Michael… I should’ve known we didn’t really have the luxury of that fear.”

“I can’t do it,” Dean says softly. “There’s gotta be another way.”

The older Dean scoffs, “Of course you say that – you’re me. You’re cocky, you don’t care about anyone but your best friend, your baby brother and yourself, right?” he sighs. “You’re gonna care about her – it’s inevitable. And by the time you realize it, everything will go to shit and there won’t be a thing you can do about it.”

He chuckles as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a tiny box. He flips it on the table, next to the bag where the Colt lays.

“What’s this?” the younger Dean asks.

Older Dean stands from the table, getting up to get another drink of whiskey. “Before you showed up, I went looking for a jewelry store on a mission. Saw that and picked it out of the display, found the box and everything.”

Younger Dean’s curiosity gets the better of him as he reaches for the box. Its velvet and tiny, and when he opens it, he gasps. A small, diamond ring lies inside.

“Really?”

Older Dean nods, “I was going to ask her tonight and save the world before morning.”

Younger Dean sighs. “Wow, man I just – “

“Do you see how serious I am?” Dean asks his younger self. “Do you see what I’m willing to do for her?” he crosses the table, standing right in front of his younger self, “You have _got_ to keep her safe, do you understand?”

Dean nods, “I understand.”

…

“Cas,” she says, smiling from her bed. “What are you doing here?”

He walks through the cabin, only stopping when he reaches her bedside, “I-I came to tell you something.”

He wipes his sweaty palms on his Wrangler jeans, but it doesn’t really help. Castiel’s heart is beating a million times a minute and he just can’t _breathe_. The room is hazy and _hot_ around him, he’s glad he doesn’t wear the heavy trenchcoat anymore, the very thought makes him melt inside his skin.

“What?” her smile is so innocent, so full of life. In fact, that’s one of the reasons Cas fell for her in the first place – in a world falling to darkness, her smile gives light to the world.

He bites his lip and tries to smile, but it falters. “We’ve been friends for a – uh – a very long time.”

His gaze falls to the ground, but he can hear her smile in her voice. “Yeah, I know that.”

“I…” he sighs, why can’t he get the words out? Other women don’t make him uncomfortable like this. Hell, Castiel has convinced nearly all the women in camp to participate in a damn _orgy_ _,_ a feat for no normal man. She’s just a plain girl, not even as pretty as some of the ones he’s had on his bed. She’s nothing special.

He looks up at her and meets her eyes. His jaw set to tell her this so he can move on with his death, his sacrifice. As their eyes lock, he starts to tell himself, _she’s nothing special_.

But yet…

The words catch in his throat. That’s not true. He knows it’s not true. Marking her as anything but plain is a pathetic lie, pathetic that it’s so far from the truth that Castiel is so desperate to forget.

“What, Cas?”

 _She’s perfect_.

“You know, there’s a reason I’m always with other women i-in the camp.”

She smiles even wider, “I know. You like girls – Dean used to be like that.”

“It’s not quite... like… _that_ ,” Castiel says, a blush creeping to his cheeks.

She sits up, “Okay, so spit it out, what’s going on, Cas?”

Her eyes are expectant, and Castiel hesitates. Now is the time to back out if he has any hope of retaining his friendship with her before this mission tonight. Now is the time to make up some lie about liking a girl in the camp – or _anything_ – so he can make their last memories something happy and _pleasant_.

She looks down, picking at the quilt that covers their bed. Castiel wonders if she made it herself, she made the one that covers his bed.

She sighs, waiting for him to finish. Cas could hug her right now and be filled with the happiness of this last pleasant visit. But the pleasant memories would be weighed down by the pure _wonder_. He’d spend the short rest of his life wondering what she would have said – only his own imagination and speculation to keep him company as he charges to his death.

He takes a deep breath. “I love you.”

He exhales – the truth is out there, he can’t get it back.

Her head snaps up like she’s been slapped across the face. She just stares at him and he can see tears start to fill her eyes. “W-what?”

He nods, “I love you. And I have, for a very long time.”

“N-N-No,” she says, starting to shake her head. “Cas, Cas, I – I love Dean, I – I can’t… you …”

He shakes his head and holds up his hands, “Relax. I’m not here to bid for your love or to try to persuade you away from Dean. I just – I wanted you to know. You deserved to know.”

“Why?” she breathes.

Cas takes a deep breath, “You’ve been my best friend for almost as long as Dean has, I didn’t feel right going into tomorrow keeping a secret from you.”

“Tomorrow?” she repeats. “What’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is going to be … difficult. If it doesn’t go as planned, well, I just didn’t want to go and you not know that.”

“Dean hasn’t told me anything about the mission,” she admits. “Where are you going?”

So Cas tells her. He tells her the plan word for word, carefully excluding his suspicions about Dean sacrificing them. When he finishes, the tears are gone from her eyes and they’re replaced with a glare.

“He’s facing the devil, without me.”

Castiel nods, “I believe so, yes.”

She shakes her head and stands from the bed, “C’mon, Cas. There’s a conversation we need to have with our oh, so fearless leader.”

…

“And you were just going to leave me behind?” she spits, like acid.

Dean winces a little, “It’s too dangerous.”

“Bullshit,” she snaps. “Too dangerous that a former hunter, and probably the third best shot in the camp isn’t even invited?”

“You’re out of practice,” he defends. “How long has it been since you’ve hunted anything?”

She rolls her eyes, “Don’t _even_ try to pin this on my hunting. This has to do with you and your need to protect me all the time.”

“Damn right it does,” he snaps back.

Castiel and the 2009 Dean sit at the table, watching the two of them go back and forth. Everyone in the room is against her, but she refuses to back down. She sees the younger Dean with a smirk on his face, as if he’s amused by how angry she’s getting.

“I’m going, and that is _final_.”

Three voices spring up.

“Absolutely not.”

“I cannot allow this.”

“Hell no you aren’t!”

She glares at the three of them. Castiel makes a move to reach out and touch her – she doesn’t fail to notice the younger Dean flinch in the corner, almost afraid to let the orgy and drug loving former angel of the lord touch her.

“I’m going,” she repeats. “Because you can’t expect me to sit here while the two,” she half smiles, looking at younger Dean, “three people I love most risk their lives to save the world.”

“But you’ll be _safe_ here,” the older Dean, _her_ Dean says, touching her hands.

“I’d rather be on the battle field, toting a gun next to you in the most dangerous place on earth than pace my way around camp in safety.” She looks up in his eyes and she sees a flicker of the compassion that used to be there.

She knows Dean. She knows he wants her beside him more than anything in the world – it’s the most selfish desire he has. She just looks, hoping that he’ll give her his blessing. Several seconds pass without a word being spoken before her Dean finally reaches out and pulls her to his chest.

“Alright, we leave at midnight.”

…

The first thing Dean notices is that he’s not on a bed. He groans, his head aching as he tries to right himself against the leaves and compost of the hard ground. He opens his eyes and sees the jeep he came in next to him and hears the gunshots.

Automatic rifles and guns are blazing in the building directly in front of him. He gasps in anger, frustration as he tries to stand and head for the building without watching where he’s going or grabbing a weapon.

His foot catches something and he stumbles back to the ground. He falls hard on his hands and knees, looking behind him to see her, stirring from sleep.

“What the hell?” she asks, rubbing both her eyes and the back of her head.

“Asshole Bizarro Dean got you too, huh?” he grunts, standing up. He reaches down for her hand and pulls her up beside him.

She takes a deep breath and wipes the dirt from her face, “I guess so. I came back here to check on you and him and the next thing I knew, the lights were out. Stupid asshole, always trying to protect me.”

“You should thank your stars,” Dean grumbles.

Her eyes narrow, “What makes you say that?”

“Risa, Cas, Jimmy? They were the decoys.”

“What?”

Dean nods, “I can promise you that Bizarro Dean went in through the back while your buddies distracted the front.”

Another round of gunshots. Her head flies toward the sound, hair flying as it comes loose from its braid. Dean catches himself thinking how beautiful she is.

“Should we…?”

Dean nods, “Uh – yeah. Absolutely. Got any weapons on you?”

She nods without looking at him and reaches into her pocket for a small handgun. Dean runs his hand over the metal and chuckles when he recognizes it.

“What?”

His mouth forms into a smirk, “I gave you my favorite gun. I must really dig you.”

She smiles, “I guess so.”

The gunshots are heavy, the _pop pop pop_ filling the air quicker and quicker. Dean reaches for her hand, “Let’s go.”

They run toward the building, almost stopping when they see the windows light up with gunshots. Dean pulls her to the left, “This way, _this_ way!” he says.

“We gotta find Dean and Cas,” she hisses.

Dean ignores her, leading her into a courtyard. He stops suddenly, seeing a figure in a white suit with his back to him. Instinctively, Dean hides her behind him, getting between her and whatever threat is at the other end of this courtyard.

His gaze travels toward the ground, toward whatever this white-suit-guy is looking at. He sees himself, on the ground, with the white-suit-guy’s shoe on his neck. His older self looks at him, then past him, making eye contact with her.

Dean’s grip tightens on her hand and a snarl escapes his lips.

“ _No_!” she yells, trying to reach him. Dean holds her back and crushes her to his chest, hiding her eyes as the guy’s shoe comes down on his older self’s neck, cracking the bones and killing him.

The guy turns around and Dean’s eyes fall on the familiar gaze of his brother.

“Oh,” Sam says. “Hello, Dean.”

He smiles as he leans around Dean to see her, he gives her a greeting before turning back to Dean.

“You’ve come a long way to see this, haven’t you?”

“Bring him back, you son of a bitch,” she hisses behind him. “Bring him back or kill us both.” Dean closes his arms around her, pushing her behind him, protecting her.

Sam smiles, but it’s not a familiar smile. No, it’s not one that 2009 Dean has ever seen his brother give.

This is the smile of Lucifer.

“Kill you?” he chuckles, looking at the body of 2014 Dean, “Wouldn’t that be redundant?”

“Then what are you going to do?” she hisses.

“Deep fry the planet?” Dean finishes.

Lucifer smiles, using Sam’s smile. It makes Dean’s stomach turn. “Why? Why would I want to destroy this perfect thing? The last great handiwork of God?”

“You are Lucifer,” Dean snarls.

“Oh no,” Lucifer soothes, taking a step toward them. they both stiffen. “You have me all wrong. Have you ever heard the story of how I fell from grace?”

“Oh good God, you’re not gonna tell us a bedtime story, are you?” Dean growls. “My stomach’s almost out of bile.”

Lucifer just looks around, giving that annoying smile, before launching into his tale about loving God too much, and refusing to bow down to the ‘hairless apes.’ When he finishes, he looks first at Dean, then at her, waiting for some kind of response.

“Send him back,” she says, her voice softer. Dean’s head whips around to look at her, but her eyes are solely on Lucifer.

“Excuse me?”

She pokes around from Dean, standing at his side rather than behind him. “You made your point. So don’t hurt him. Send him back to 2009.”

He smiles again, “I told you once before, my dear, I am not going to hurt Dean Winchester.”

“So prove it. Send him back, now.”

Lucifer pauses, looking into her eyes, Dean grips the handle of his gun, tightening it for a moment’s notice. He knows it won’t kill Lucifer, but he can’t help but try – anything to protect her.

“I can’t help but notice the utter lack of regard for your own life,” he comments, never breaking eye contact. “Do you love this human so much that you’d give your life for his?”

She breaks from Lucifer’s gaze, looking back at Dean. Dean knows that he’s not the same guy she loves – that guy is lying dead on the ground less than 10 feet away. But Dean knows he _can_ be that guy, eventually. And as he sees her eyes fill with tears, he knows that she knows it too. He knows that she’d give everything to keep him safe.

“Yes,” she whispers, squeezing his hand. There’s silence as she just looks at him, and Dean can see so much of this woman in the one he left in 2009 – so much good, so much _light_ , it’s intoxicating.

“Ah,” Lucifer sighs, breaking the moment. “This is what I love about you humans. The world is crumbling, falling to pieces, but yet, you only have each other, and that’s all that you think you need.”

“I feel sorry for you,” she whispers. “Being in there with Sam, sharing all of his feelings of love and tenderness and compassion, having to _feel_ all of that secondhand, knowing you’ll never have it.”

“Is it the same feeling, I wonder, as knowing there is nothing you can do to change this?” Lucifer asks. “Because we both know Dean won’t say yes to Michael and we know that he won’t kill his brother. It doesn’t matter what you do when you get back to your time, Dean. Whatever plans you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up here.”

Lucifer’s smile fades as he looks at Dean, “See you in five years, Dean.”

Dean looks around the empty courtyard as Lucifer disappears, crushing her to his chest. She begins to cry, her façade falling at the realization that the love of her life is dead. Dean doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t look at her. He just holds her, his mind racing a million miles a minute.

He’s got to change this.

He’s got to fix this so that she never has to feel this heartbreak.

He’s got to stop the apocalypse without saying yes to Michael.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be an epilogue set in 2009 :)


	6. 2009

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, the epilogue/last chapter! thanks for sticking with me, guys :)

Dean took a deep breath and smiled at the trenchcoat wearing angel. He put a hand on the angel’s shoulder, “Cas… don’t ever change.”

“How did Zachariah find you?”

Dean rolls his eyes, “Let’s just say we should avoid all Jehovah’s Witnesses from now on, okay?”

Castiel just nodded, clearly confused by the statement. He watched as Dean pulled out his phone and started dialing numbers.

“What are you doing?”

“Something I should’ve done in the first place,” he answers, pressing the ‘call’ button.

She answers promptly, as he knew she would.

“Dean?”

He sighs in relief, “Where are you?”

“Georgia, why?”

“Working a case?” he asks, bluntly.

There’s a pause on the other end and he can hear her whispering to someone else. His stomach drops at the thought of another male with her.

“Yes,” she answers. “Dean, what’s going on?”

He takes a deep breath, “I need to see you. now.”

“Dean,” she huffs. “I’m on a job with Rachael. I can’t just leave her out to dry.”

“Bring her,” he huffs back. “This is important.”

Another pause, “How important?”

Dean looks to Castiel and closes his eyes, “End of the world important.”

“This have anything to do with that demon you were chasing down? Lilith or whatever?”

“Yes,” Dean nods. “Tell me where I can find you.”

She sighs, “Rachael and I will meet you in South Dakota Friday.”

Dean hangs up the phone and starts dialing again.

“Who are you calling now?” Castiel asks.

“Sam,” Dean answers, still dialing. “I can’t do this without her and I can’t do it without him.” He turns to Castiel, “And I can’t do it without you either, Cas.”

Castiel’s face breaks into a smile, “I see the future changed your perspective a little.”

Dean nodded, “Yep. The three of us made a hell of a team, you know. Be even better with Sam.”

Castiel just nodded again, “I bet it would.”

…

Dean drives entirely too fast through South Dakota. He fiddles with the radio, deciding he hates nearly every song playing. He taps his legs, taps the steering wheel, anything and everything to keep moving.

Dean Winchester is nervous.

Sam Winchester sits in the passenger seat, ignoring his brother. He has a book open in his lap, turned to a page on the Biblical apocalypse. Dean knows his brother wants to be as informed as possible, but he can’t figure out how Sam isn’t as nervous as he os.

Then again, Sam doesn’t 100% know that he is on his way to try to convince his soulmate to start hunting with them again.

Castiel sits in the backseat, fascinated by the scenery as it flies past them. Dean’s eyes flicker to the rearview mirror, studying Castiel’s face.

On the one hand, he is 100% sure that the Castiel of 2014 loved her just as much as his own future self did. of course, he didn’t get a chance to ask that Castiel how it started or when, but he assumes it was a right-away type thing.

When he finally pulls into the designated abandoned warehouse parking lot, Dean spies a green Jeep sitting at the edge and he thinks he can see two figures inside. He sighs with relief, pulling in and parking the Impala next to the vehicle.

The doors creak as he, Sam, and Castiel get out of the Impala, and Dean can hear the doors of the Jeep creak open as the two girls hop down. He smiles when he sees her, all full of light and love with her hair hanging down her back, flannel halfway buttoned up, and shorts showing off her tan legs.

He calls her name, smiling when she makes a beeline for his arms, pulling him to her in a bone-crushing hug. “Dean,” she sighs, pulling back after a second. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” Dean croaks out. He sneaks a peek at his best friend, expecting to see some kind of sorrow or sadness in his eyes – but he doesn’t.

Castiel isn’t looking at Dean or the girl in his arms. Castiel is looking by the Jeep, at the dark-haired beauty that just climbed down from the Jeep.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaims, jumping back from Dean. “I’m so sorry guys, I’m so rude.” She reaches for her friend’s hand, pulling her closer to the group of boys. “This is Rachael, she’s been hunting with me. She’s pretty bad ass.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam asks with a smirk.

Rachael waggles her eyebrows, “Killed my first vamp at 13.”

Sam smiles and extends his hand, letting Rachael shake it. Dean copies his actions, studying the girl.

She wears white shorts that make her legs look extremely dark and Dean wonders when she’d have time to go tanning like that. Her hair is dark, cut in a pixie style and expertly framing her face as her makeup highlights her bright eyes and smile. Her black tank top peeks out of a green flannel and Dean can see a cross hanging from a chain on her neck.

“Are you religious?” Dean blurts, zeroing in on the necklace.

Rachael starts to blush, “A little. This is my dad’s necklace.”

“Because you know…” Dean catches her eye as she leans up against the jeep – she smiles when she realizes what he’s up to. “Cas here is a real-life angel of God.”

Rachael’s eyes widen as she looks past Dean to the awkward man in the trenchcoat. “Is that true?”

Castiel nods, “Um – yes, I am an angel of the Lord.”

Rachael smirks, “Well, how about that.”

“I even bet,” she adds, “that Castiel would take you somewhere that he could show you his wings.”

Castiel’s face starts to flush as Rachael smiles, “I’d like that.” She walks over to him, looping an arm through his as they take off walking for the warehouse.

Sam leans against the Impala as she leans against her Jeep – Dean stands between them, feeling too awkward to say anything. Thankfully, Sam picks up on the tension and holds his out to Dean, “Give me the keys, man. I gotta go get a hotel before they all fill up.”

Dean sighs in relief as he reaches into his pocket. She smiles, “Thanks, Sam. Get Rachael and I a room to share – we’ll figure out who’s sleeping where later.”

Sam nods, walking around to the driver’s side of the Impala and firing it up. He lets it rumble for a second before pulling out of the parking lot.

“That was nice of you,” she says, nodding her head toward where Castiel and Rachael had disappeared into the warehouse.

Dean shrugs, leaning against the Jeep next to her, “Cas needs a friend.”

She lets the silence hang for a few seconds before cutting her gaze back to him. “Why’d you call me, Dean?”

Dean takes a deep breath, contemplating how to phrase the feelings he’s had since he came back to his own time. “Things… things are complicated,” he starts. She waits patiently for him to finish, so he takes another breath.

“Lilith… she started something – something bad.”

“What?”

“The apocalypse.”

She just leans back on the Jeep, “Sounds heavy. But you and Sam are good hunters, you don’t need our help.”

Dean just nods, taking another breath. “No, I don’t need your help. But…”

“But?”

Dean turns toward her, making sure he’s looking in her eyes. “I’m not good with these things, but… since we slept together, I – I can’t… I can’t _stop_ thinking about you.”

Her mouth turns up in a smile, “Me either.”

“I’m just – I’m worried that these… _awful_ things are gonna start and you’ll be – you won’t be _with_ me.”

Her hand trails up his arm, settling on his shoulder for a second before touching his cheek. Her mouth curls into a smile, “If you wanted me around, Dean, all you had to do was ask.”

Dean chuckles for a second, leaning in so he’s just a breath away from her lips. He hangs for a second before whispering against her skin, “You’re a good hunter, honey, but only you’ll be safe with me. And only me.”

She closes the distance, putting a soft and sweet kiss on his lips. Too soon she pulls away from him, looking at his green eyes through long lashes. “I think you’re right. Maybe Rachael and I will stick around to keep your asses out of trouble.”

Dean laughs, snaking a hand around her shoulders and pulling her close to him. Because this is where she belongs – no matter the situation, no matter the year. She belongs with him


End file.
